Ben Burge, the man hoping to re-ignite the electricity market

Andrew Colley

Meet Ben Burge, the math whiz trying to shake up the staid retail energy market with a smartphone app and a good dose of analytics.

When he is away with the family, his mother-in-law pops by discreetly to do a load of washing. Her only explanation for his seemingly clairvoyant ability to know when to send her thank-you flowers is strategically placed web cams.

Bright spark: Ben Burge is hoping consumers will want to be involved with their choice of electricity suppliers. Photo: Salona Chithiray

The truth is far more prosaic. Burge, chief executive of online retail energy challenger Powershop, knows when she's there because the company's app on his smartphone registers an unmistakeable spike in his home's energy consumption.

It's a powerful tool and one he wants to put in the hands every Australian in a bid to take on the major energy retailers with cheaper and cleaner electricity.

Burge, once Australia's youngest CEO of a listed company, eMitch, at 25, and keen skateboarder, has already picked up 30,000 customers in Victoria whilst at the helm of what Powershop claims is the world's first retail online energy market.

It lets consumers use a smartphone app (on iPhone and Android) or the web to monitor their energy consumption at home and choose the source of their electricity – from alternative energy projects including wind, solar or even sugarcane processing and landfill generation. A move that could help increase demand for renewable energy.

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Some time early in 2015 the service will launch in NSW. Burge said the company has started limited customer trials in the state and he expected a full commercial version of the service to be operating within three months.

"We always had a plan to go to NSW but we wanted to make sure the product was working for our customers. We'll hit the bricks early 2015," Mr Burge said.

Powershop, which is part of New Zealand's renewable energy provider Meridian Group, Australasia's largest renewable energy company, owns and operates two wind farms in Victoria and South Australia. It also has relationships with other independent electricity generators helping them overcome the market power of the major retailers and gain direct access to customer revenue.

Mr Burge said that traditionally Australians have been content to ignore the nuances of the energy market and pay a quarterly bill. However, increasing political sensitivity around the government's renewable energy targets and the rising cost of electricity were forcing consumers to be more conscious of their power consumption habits.

The service allows consumers to take advantage of energy "specials" which can be purchased in packages with just a few clicks. Using algorithm, the system then prioritises consumption in order to minimise the customer's energy bill.

Powershop was even exploring the potential to use its service as a quasi-crowd funding platform to give consumers the ability to invest in energy projects to offset future energy costs, he said.

"The average consumer just wants to switch off. It's a fundamentally boring topic but unfortunately because electricity bills have become so large it's not just boring anymore it's actually scary," he said.

Powershop, which entered Victoria's energy market early in 2014, has opened its doors for business in Australia at a time of uncertainty for energy regulators. Labor and the Coalition are yet to reach an agreement on renewable energy targets following the release of the Warburton review in August.

The review recommended that new entrants be locked out of the Large-scale Renewable Energy target or that it be limited to 50 per cent of projected growth in national electricity demand to "protect the broader community from the cost of subsidising unnecessary additional generation capacity if electricity demand continues to fall."

Prior to the election the government committed sourcing 20 per cent of Australia's energy needs from renewable sources or around 41,000 gigawatt hours.

If the renewable energy target were closed to new entrants as favoured by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, renewables would only account for 17,000 gigawatt hours by 2020. That's prompted the Greens to accuse the government of adopting climate denial and doing an $8 billion favour to the fossil fuel industry at the expense of $20 billion invested in clean energy.

Burge said that Powershop's service was challenging the view put forward by major energy retailers that renewable energy would drive power bills up.

Miles George chairman of the Clean Energy Council and managing director Infigen Energy said that second tier generators had captured a "healthy" share of the retail energy market by offering discounts

"If we didn't have a [target] those businesses wouldn't be operating the way they are now and likely would not be operating those retail businesses which are an adjunct to their renewable generation," Mr George said.